Hate to QFFLI Your UQJTEX
by Donteatacowman
Summary: Dipper's life is hard and this nightmare is the icing on the cake. Or is it? After he wakes up, his world starts getting better by the day. But something's off. Can you solve the mystery of Gravity Falls before Dipper does? Canon divergent AU.
1. Chapter 1

Bright red. A whipping wind. The ground scraping against his face, twigs and dirt embedding themselves into fresh wounds. A huge eyeball. Screaming.

Dipper gasped. His eyes popped open.

He'd had a… bad dream? His hand patted down his covers; it was dark. Moonlight streamed in from the triangular window (disturbingly Bill-shaped, he remembered uncomfortably) but not enough for him to see well. He could just barely make out the shape of his sister's body, rising and falling with slow breaths. The Shack was quiet.

With effort, he tried to think back to what had made him jump. The dream was already disappearing from his memory, but… Great Uncle Ford was there, saying something about the end of the world? The sky was an angry bright red, fresh like a newly opened wound.

Dipper let his breath out slowly. Whatever it was, it was nothing to worry about now. With a groan, he dropped his arm over his eyes and fell back into his bed. It felt softer than usual, more comforting, and he sunk back into sleep without any other thoughts in his head.

The next time he cracked his eyes open, it was still quiet, though the light filtering through his window was soft and yellow and carried dust motes that floated like fairies through the Shack's attic.

"Hey, bro-bro," Mabel murmured to him. She was already awake, knitting in bed. Looked like tomorrow's sweater would be pastel pink with glitter added liberally to the yarn, courtesy of Mabel's glitter fabric glue.

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper answered with a yawn. He pushed himself up out of bed. "No wake-up call this morning?" With resignation, he'd become used to to Mabel's habit of jumping on the bed to wake him up, or blaring loud music, or generally getting impatient with how late he liked to sleep.

"Nah," she chirped. "You looked pretty tired so I thought I'd let you sleep in like the wonderful twin I am." Waddles, splayed out across her legs, oinked in agreement.

"Thanks, I guess. I did sleep weird." Dipper climbed out of bed and looked at the clock. "Huh, it's still pretty early. Maybe my sleep schedule's on time for once."

"Yeah," his sister agreed as she set aside her yarn. "I bet we can still grab some Stancakes."

"Well..." Dipper let his sentence trail off as he ambled to the staircase. "Maybe, though there might only be enough for one of us _raceyoudown-_!" The last few words were jumbled together as he broke into a run down the stairs, a laughing Mabel soon hot on his heels and crying out at his trickery.

Dipper slid to a stop in the doorway to the kitchen at what he saw. Mabel almost bumped into him, but shuffled back just in time.

Grunkle Stan and Great Uncle Ford were at the kitchen eating already. _Together_. They both looked up when Dipper and Mabel entered, with Stan waving a hand and Great Uncle Ford smiling.

"There you kids are. Dig in!" Grunkle Stan said, pushing the remaining plate of Stancakes towards the kids. "I made enough for all of us."

"Great Uncle Ford?" Dipper asked, confusion evident on his face as he hopped onto a seat, Mabel following. "You… wanna have breakfast with Grunkle Stan?"

"Well, sure, we're brothers, after all," Ford said with a laugh. "We may have our differences, but that doesn't mean we can't even sit in the same room. Though to be perfectly honest, Dipper, I wanted to talk to you this morning and I didn't think it should wait," he added thoughtfully.

Mabel had been squirting syrup on her Stancakes as Ford talked and handed Dipper the bottle. He took it after a second. "It's important?" he said to Ford.

"That it is." Ford waited until Dipper finished squeezing syrup on to add, "It's about your future in Gravity Falls."

"O-oh." He almost dropped the bottle. "We're not going to be here long, I mean, me and Mabel are going back to Piedmont at the end of the summer."

"Exactly," said Ford. "And what a waste! You've explored every nook and cranny of this town and you've learned more than I did during my years here. I'd really prefer you stay and work with me."

Dipper froze. An intense feeling of deja vu washed over him along with dreadful foreboding. His eyes flicked over to Mabel, then to Stan. "I, um, yeah, I'd love to, but Mabel…"

"It's fine, Dip!" Mabel beamed at him, silver braces gleaming. "Grunkle Ford talked to me about it yesterday. I think it's a great idea!"

"You do?" Dipper's face colored when he realized that his voice had been more of a squeak than anything else, so he cleared his throat. "I thought that you-aren't you upset?"

"Pshaw!" Mabel waved her hand. "Upset about what? That my brother's got a chance to follow his dream? Yeah, I'm _devastated_."

"No! What about going to high school together? I thought you wanted that!"

"Is that what _you_ want?" Mabel stared at him, her eyes suddenly piercing.

Dipper dropped his head. He wrung his shirt in his hands. "No," he admitted.

"Then there's no problem. I want what you want." Mabel's encouraging tone made him lift his head.

"I think that's what we all want," Stan interjected. "Sixer here said that the basement is a good enough lab for him, so we can keep the Shack open to bring in money to finance projects instead of his old grants. I'll need help some days, so you'd better stick around, Dipper."

"Really?!" Dipper twisted his head to look at Stan. "That's great! I can't believe it!"

"We already contacted your parents to ask permission," Ford said, pleased. "We said that I'm a researcher from the government looking into the anomalies of Gravity Falls and that I'd offered to take you on as a research assistant. They bought it hook, line, and sinker."

"Wow!" Dipper looked around the table. "This is a lot to take in, guys."

Mabel slung her arm around his shoulder, tugging him closer. "Looks like things are finally going your way, huh, Dipper?"

* * *

The end of August seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Mabel had thrown her and Dipper a party-his thirteenth, he was _finally_ a teenager-and boarded a bus to Piedmont the very next day. Dipper had expected tears and clinging and frantic promises to video-call every day, but Mabel seemed weirdly fine with it-a sibling hug was all they got before she left. Maybe she'd finally matured to Dipper's level.

It wasn't long before Dipper was holed up in Ford's secret room, comparing his own notes in the Journals with the originals. (Ford had showed him a code he hadn't been able to figure out on his own, something involving bar codes that Dipper had a hard time wrapping his mind around. They had more information to work with than ever.)

While Ford typed up one of their recent discoveries into the computer, Dipper stared at a remaining piece of Bill paraphernalia left in the room: a statue of Bill that made him think of some foreign war goddess he thought he'd seen in a book once.

"Grunkle Ford?" Early on, Dipper had started using the 'grunkle' title at Ford's request. 'Makes us feel more like a family,' Ford had insisted.

"Yes, Dipper?" Ford was amazing. His typing rate didn't slow even when his attention was drawn elsewhere.

"Why do you still have all this Bill stuff? It makes me feel like he's… I dunno, watching us."

The typing stopped then as Ford swiveled his chair to face him. "Would you rather they were gone?"

"It'd make this room look a lot different, that's for sure," Dipper said with a frown. Mollified, Ford started typing again.

"What happened to Bill anyway?" Dipper said after a few minutes.

"He's still in the dreamscape," Ford said distractedly. "He can't hurt us now, especially since you finished encrypting your thoughts last week."

"Yeah, but-" Dipper stopped, feeling foolish, but then continued. Bill was so powerful he was practically a force of nature; how could he just disappear without a fuss? "I had a dream earlier this summer about him. I don't remember what happened, but I think it was about the end of the world. You were trying to stop it? With… glue?"

Ford laughed. "Not every dream with Bill in it is real, Dipper. Sometimes dreams are just dreams. Now-"

The ding of the elevator interrupted them. "Oh, there's my brother," Ford said with a roll of his eyes. "He probably wants you to go help in the Shack."

Dipper blinked. Hadn't this room been a secret? How did Grunkle Stan get down here? But, sure enough, Stan stepped out of the elevator bellowing, " **Hey kid!** A tourist bus just unloaded and I need you up here stocking the shelves pronto! Hop to it!"

Dipper sighed and looked up at Ford. "Can I go?"

"Sure, sure," Ford said. He reached over and tousled Dipper's hair beneath the brim of his cap. "Don't overwork yourself, though. We need to figure out the jackalope nesting-ground coordinates later tonight." Dipper smiled shyly before trotting over to the elevator to join Stan for the rush.

Despite Stan's insistence that a bus full of tourists was spilling into the Shack, Dipper didn't have much work to do once he finished putting out cheaply-made snowglobes on the store shelves. A few customers milled around, but Wendy looked bored at the register.

"Hey, Dipper, my man!" she said when she saw him slip behind the counter for an unscheduled break. "You want to waste time folding up the cash register's dollar bills with me? I found out a new way to fold them that makes Washington's hair look like an atom bomb cloud." She mimed an explosion around her head. "Mind. Blown."

"Not now, Wendy," he said with a laugh, climbing onto a stool beside her. Dipper had started a growth spurt that month, so he didn't have to scramble up the tall stool like he used to. "Just kind of wanted to chat, you know? It feels like it's been a while. This month has gone by so fast."

"Yeah," Wendy said with a nod, counting off on her fingers. "Helping in the shack, video chatting with Mabel, working with your new Grunkle-"

"Hang on, you know about that?"

"You wanted to keep it a secret?" She feigned hurt.

"No, I just-Grunkle Ford acted like this was all hush-hush."

"Yeah, well, I know more about what goes on around Gravity Falls than you think, Dipper. For example…" She poked his chest. "I know _you_ bought a razor last week because you've started shaving."

Dipper gaped. "How'd you-"

"Found its wrapper in the trash. Stan only buys the dollar store brand." Wendy tapped her nose with a smile. "And I'm pretty sure the other Stan doesn't shave." Dipper laughed.

"It makes you think, though," Wendy said. The store had already quieted down, with only a couple people browsing merchandise on the other side of the store. They were effectively alone.

"Think about what?"

"Well…" Wendy stretched. "You're thirteen now. When you were twelve, you were basically a little kid. A cool one, but _you_ know. Right now you're only two years younger than me."

Dipper coughed, looking away and hoping Wendy didn't notice how hot his face was getting.

"And before when you were only here for the summer, it felt weird knowing you had a crush on me. How long would we last, a month? But now you're here for basically, like, forever."

"Wendy," Dipper started, the blood draining from his face. "What are you saying?"

"I'm _saying-_ " And just like that, her lips were on his.

And then he was falling, his body slamming against the ground. He'd lost his balance on the stool. Wendy laughed, reaching out to help him up. Dipper just blinked at her, his hand hovering over his lips.

"What's wrong, man? I thought you wanted this."

"I thought so too, but-" His voice died. Dipper scrambled to his feet, stammering. "I, I really like you Wendy, but I thought we'd been over this, and you said you didn't-"

"Can't a girl change her mind?" Wendy smirked. "Look, dude, if you don't want to, I won't push it. I just thought this was what you wanted."

Dipper stared at her. _What you wanted. What you wanted._ The words echoed in his head, feeling important somehow. "I don't know," he said. "I just, I need to think about it. Okay?"

"Okay, man. I'm sorry. Let me know what you figure out. I can wait." She kept smiling at him until he was out of the room and climbing the stairs to the attic.

Kissing Wendy… It was something he'd dreamed about for ages. But something about it felt wrong.

* * *

"It just took me so long to get over her, you know?" Dipper groused to Mabel by way of the camera on his laptop. "And I thought I was finally done, and she springs this on me out of the blue. What am I supposed to do?"

"Well, what do you want from her?" Mabel asked. She was chewing on a sucker-yes, _chewing_ , what the heck, Mabel-as a rowdy classroom full of kids on their "study period" made noise behind her.

"I don't know! It's great. This is great. Everything that's happened this summer, it's been awesome. I don't know why I'm not happy with it."

"You need to turn that worry-wart brain off," Mabel said, miming flicking a switch on her head. "Bwop! Like that. It's not like when we were fighting Bill anymore, Dipper. You can stop freaking out about everything now. Good stuff can happen to you without needing a reason."

"Not like when we were fighting Bill…" Dipper repeated under his breath. "Bill's still out there though, Mabel, planning who-knows-what. And now if I need to fight him, you're not here."

"I can be there whenever you want, though. It's not a long bus ride."

' _Whenever I want_.' "You'd put your life on hold like that? I thought you made a bunch of new school friends," Dipper said with a frown toward the camera. "Didn't you say you were throwing a party to impress that guy you've got a crush on this week?"

"My bro-bro's more important than some _guy_ ," Mabel said with a grin. "After this summer? I trust your judgment, Dipper. If you think a mystery that needs solving is more important than my party, I'll be there in an instant. Got it?" She pointed a finger at the camera, obviously thinking it was the proper pose for an endearingly cute sibling.

Dipper laughed. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Mabel. I can always count on you."

"Anytime. Though not now, because-" She was interrupted by a bell ringing, signaling the end of the period. "-That's why. Gotta go, love you, have fun with the jackalope hunting!" She signed off quickly.

Dipper frowned at the screen, Mabel's last words ringing in his mind. So many things people said lately were striking him as somehow off. Dipper pulled out his notebook, the one he'd started taking notes on whenever there was a mystery he wanted to figure out without Ford's help. Already, it had meandering lines of scribbled pieces of evidence. Specifically, that everyone in Gravity Falls seemed to insist on doing whatever Dipper wanted.

That was _weird_.

No, really, it was weird. Dipper was used to people steamrolling over his needs. Stan was too concerned with making money, Ford was too involved in his research and keeping secrets, Mabel was too obsessed with guys and friends and whatever else went on in Mabel-land. They were a good family but they weren't usually this _attentive_. And, Dipper had to admit to himself, he tended to blow things out of proportion. Mabel especially was his anchor. She didn't normally encourage Dipper when he worked himself into a frenzy about the supernatural.

Flipping a page, Dipper started a new column.

 _Good things_

He chewed on his pencil and started listing off the good things that had happened to him at the end of the summer, the streak of luck that had piled on him all at once.

 _Ford's apprenticeship_

 _Mabel OK with moving_

 _Stan keeps Shack_

 _Bill gone (for now?)_

 _Grew a few inches_

 _WENDY LIKES ME_

 _Mabel willing to skip party for me_

The eraser was chewed off of his pencil already. Dipper added more.

 _Grunkle Ford nicer_

 _W_ -

He stopped writing when he heard Stan call up the stairs. "Hey, Dipper! Ford's dragged out that nerd game. The one with the graphs? Turned you into an elf boy that one time? We ordered pizza. Wanna play with us while we're waiting on it?"

Dipper scribbled _Stan likes nerd things?_ before he called down the stairs. "Be right down!"

* * *

3 AM. Dipper hadn't slept this badly in months. He was staring at his notes, wracking his brain for anything to add or any pattern that might emerge.

The big question, or at least the most pressing, was where Bill had gone. Dipper couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that the last time he'd seen him, Bill was planning something huge. Something awful. Something that didn't go away in a single night.

Last week, Dipper had managed to slip past Ford, Stan, Soos, and Wendy-a surprisingly difficult endeavor-to snoop for anything suspicious around town. He'd even stooped to visiting Lil' Gideon in prison, but Bill's former partner denied having seen him at all (and, weirdly, insisted on knowing whether Dipper _wanted_ to find him or not).

Dipper had a half-baked suspicion. But it was a dark suspicion, a bad one and an impossible thing that would get everyone to call him crazy if he said it. Everyone, even Mabel, would think he'd gone off the deep end.

Once Dipper had read a story about a kid who explored a magical world through reason and deduction. One thing, said the character, that a lot of sleuths ignored when trying to figure out an answer was the possibility that they could be wrong. They made up tests for hypotheses based only on proving them right. In other words, they assumed boundaries without bothering to check that they were there.

Dipper thought that his idea was wrong. He _knew_ it was wrong-the alternative was too terrible to contemplate. But he had to test it anyway, if only for peace of mind.

* * *

"Hey, Grunkle Stan?" Dipper asked innocently one day after the Mystery Shack had just closed for the night.

"Yeah?" Stan pushed up his fez as he tore his eyes from the cash drawer he'd been checking.

"I saw this magnifying glass set at the store the other day," Dipper said. He didn't look Stan in the eyes, just scratching the wood grain of the counter in front of him. "Grunkle Ford has a set but it's getting old and I'd rather have my own. It was pretty expensive though. Do you think you could buy it for me?"

"...Sure. You've put in enough work around the Shack. I guess you deserve a paycheck of some kind. I'll go buy it tonight," Stan said with a grunt as he pulled off his suit jacket and stretched.

Dipper nodded, thanking him, and scribbled down a note when his grunkle wasn't looking.

* * *

"Grunkle Ford?"

"What is it, Dipper?" The aged researcher looked up from a slide sample of antler in his lab. His eyebrows creased above his glasses.

"I know we were gonna spend next week looking for nests…" Dipper fidgeted in his seat. "But I really miss Mabel. Is it okay if I invite her over so we can have a weekend sleepover?"

"Dipper," Ford said tersely. "Jackalope only pair off annually. We won't have a chance to do this again until next year."

"Yeah, I know, the famous jackalopelope. But this is really important to me. Please?"

"Well…" Ford smiled. It made his face look younger. "I guess we can put off the research for a while if that's what you want."

"It is, thanks. I'll call her and tell her." He chewed the flesh on the inside of his cheek as he walked away. Dipper waited to add a line to his notebook until he was back on the ground floor.

* * *

"Mabel?"

"Dipper, why are you calling me in the middle of the night?" Mabel sounded bleary.

"You picked up, didn't you?" Dipper smiled. "I know you said you were meeting a guy this weekend-"

"Yeah, Chris and I have our first date!" she said excitedly.  
"-but I _really want_ you to come over to the Falls for the weekend instead. Will you do that for me?"

Silence on the line for a few seconds. Then, "Sure, Dipper. I'll be there. Let me wake up Mom and Dad to buy the bus tickets."

Dipper felt his heart sink. He hung up without a word of thanks.

* * *

"Wendy?"

"Dipper! Hey! Did you decide yet?" Wendy put down the _Work-Shirk Teen_ magazine she had been flipping through. No customers in the Shack yet again.

"Not yet." Dipper's smile was awkward. "I actually have a favor to ask from you."

She folded her arms and leaned forward across the counter. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Mabel's coming over this weekend." Dipper's face was hot. He tried not to look at her. "Can you pick up all my shifts for me?"

"Stan doesn't _pay_ you for those shifts." Wendy raised her eyebrows. "I'd be working for free."

Dipper had the good sense to look bashful. "I know, I'm sorry, I just wanted to-"

"Don't say a word. I know how much you miss Mabel." Wendy reached over to nudge Dipper in the side. "Have a good time and that's all the pay I'll need, okay?"

* * *

One last test. One last test was all he needed. Dipper rolled up his sleeves as he stepped into Greasy's Diner. The refurbished manliness tester stood before him in all its intimidating glory. Dipper fished a penny out of his pocket and started the machine up, reaching for the handle with a trembling hand.

As soon as he touched it, before he even squeezed the handle properly, the bulbs lit up. "MANLY MAN," the sign proclaimed beside a triumphant blinking light bulb. The whole diner had twisted in their seats to watch Dipper's attempt. They all clapped as Lazy Susan brought out Dipper's free stack of pancakes.

Dipper had a smile frozen on his face.

That was it. His worst fears confirmed and served to him on a silver syrup-drizzled platter.

When he got home, Dipper tore every page out of his notebook. After a moment of hesitation, he stuck them in his mouth and chewed. At this point, there was no telling who could read what he was writing. He'd have to plan this out mentally from now on.

* * *

The fun-filled weekend with Mabel was distractingly pleasant. Dipper, much to his shame, didn't even have to fake his laughter when her centaurtaur managed to somehow win a battle on its own in DD&MD or as they pored over Dipper and Ford's weirder journal entries together. He waved at her bus as it drove back to California, watching her silhouetted arm wave back enthusiastically until she was driven out of sight.

Dipper turned his back on the road, his face settled into an expression of grim determination.

"It's time to go to the library," he said to himself. He winced. The sentence had sounded braver and more impressive in his head, he decided as he walked the short distance to the building.

Dipper was well-acquainted with the occult section. Gravity Falls had a better-stocked bookcase of the supernatural than most libraries did, given the town's history. Dipper piled them on a table. _A Complete Encyclopedia of Ghosts & Spirits; Vampires and How to Kill Them; Symbols of the Occult; Banishing Rituals; Supernatural Sleep; Bodysnatchers: A Memoir; Zombies, Goblins, and Gods, Oh My!; Is Your Loved One Possessed?; Werewolves in the Night; Controlling Your Destiny Through Lucid Dreaming; Brainwashing Your Way to A Career in Advertising; My Wife Joined A Secret Society!; Welcome to Necronomi-Con!; Haunted Paintings in Oregon; Wake Up! Chilling Tales of Coma Victims; Feeding Habits of Mating Jackalopes, or Nope, Jackalope Can't Elope Without Cantaloupe._

He only needed a few of the books here. The rest he chose to divert suspicion from whoever might see what he was reading. Because of this, he had to spend an unfortunate amount of his research time reading books he didn't need at all (including the werewolf book which, to his horror, he belatedly realized was a romance novel). The pile of books and _pieces_ of information he had to _go_ through made his heart _sink_ with _pent-up_ frustration, though his blood started to _pump_ when he scanned the relevant lines that _had meshed_ with his theories. It made this excursion worthwhile. His afternoon at the library was well-spent. Dipper found out what he needed to know.

It wasn't good news.

He'd have to wait. He'd have to wait for a cavalry that, as far as he knew, would never come. It had already been over a month-how much longer? From what he read, he might experience fifty years before someone came to get him, or he might never get rescued at all.

Dipper returned all his books to the to-be-shelved cart and left the library for home, defeated. Stars twinkled above him, looking as lively and real as anything.

His life was perfect. He had everything he wanted.

Dipper dragged his feet as he trudged back home. He ignored his two grunkles' words of welcome and invitations to spend the evening however he wanted. He climbed into bed and pulled his sheets over his head. At some point he started chewing on his shirt, but he passed out in the wee hours of the morning.

What a great life.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm going out, Grunkle Stan!" Dipper called one morning, charging down the stairs and out the door of the Mystery Shack before his grunkle could get a word in edgewise. The jackalopelope had rolled around again, and this year Ford had deemed Dipper mature enough to hunt for nests and collect samples on his own. Dipper's bangs fell into his eyes in the breeze before he pushed them out of the way. They had grown out since he'd stopped wearing his cap, but he didn't mind when they occasionally made it harder to see.

"Hey, Dipper," called Lee as Dipper rushed through the street, feet pounding against the pavement rhythmically. "Going to investigate some more spooky stuff?"

"You know it!" Dipper replied, still charging ahead. Others in the town waved to him-Sheriff Blubs proclaimed, "Hey, the town hero! Figure out some mysteries for us, Dipper!" as he passed by.

Dipper laughed, the healthy pine scent of the forest filling his lungs. A year ago, he'd have been out of breath at this point, but all his time spent exploring Gravity Falls with Ford had made him stronger, and the extra several inches he'd grown in the meantime didn't hurt. His legs were longer and he could run farther. He didn't have to stop for breath until he'd hiked up to the Multi-bear's cave to say hello on his way into the forest.

The bear lent him a CD from BABBA's reunion tour, which Dipper dropped into his backpack as he climbed back down to the forest floor. He jumped to the ground, pulling out a modified genetic tracker that he'd helped Ford design last week. It beeped and spurted as he waved it around him in a tight arc, trying to hone in on the current target of his supernatural investigations.

"There he is. _Dipper_!" a voice split through the otherwise quiet woods.

Dipper nearly jumped out of his skin as he whirled around. _What was that?_ No one usually bothered him way the heck out here. He lifted his hand to his eyes to block out the noon sunlight filtering through the leaves. He was able to make out Mabel, Soos, and Wendy waving at him from a small ways away. "Guys? Mabel, what are you doing here? And Soos, I thought Stan gave you the day off," he called as he tried to remember the last time he'd seen the handyman.

As he got closer to them, though, it became obvious that they were a little worse for wear than he remembered.

When he was ten feet away or so, a pink blur flew at him and he felt himself being choked. Or, rather, he realized he was the victim of a too-tight Mabel hug. "Oof, Mabel, what the heck, I can't breathe-"

"Sorry, sorry!" Mabel's eyes welled up as her vice-like grip loosened just enough. Dipper hadn't seen her cry since sometime last summer. An impatient noise came out of her mouth as she seemed to choke up.

"Hey, hey, no, Mabel, it's okay, what's wrong?" Dipper hugged her back. "I've missed you lately-did Mom and Dad say you had to come here for the summer again?"

"No, Dipper. You have to come with us! Right away, it's important!" Mabel said hurriedly.

"Really?" Dipper frowned. "What for? You guys seem like you're in a rush."

Mabel was too emotional to answer. Wendy and Soos glanced at each other awkwardly before Wendy said, "Okay, man, I don't know if you're gonna believe this." She chose her words carefully, shifting her weight between her scuffed and muddy boots. "But this… this isn't real." Wendy rubbed her arm where red skin showed through a hole in the fabric.

"Huh?" Dipper played dumb, just in case, and gave a short laugh. "I don't know what you mean. You're not real?"

"No, dude," Soos piped up. "This _world_ isn't real. That Bill guy-"

In the blink of an eye, Dipper abandoned his teary sister to jump up and slap his hand around Soos's mouth. At this point in his life, he was tall enough to reach. " _Not here_ ," he whispered. His carefree expression from earlier vanished like it had never been there. Dipper's eyes bugged out as he looked to and fro, like he expected someone to pounce on them any second. Soos widened his own eyes in concern at the teenager's shaky breath, but the threat that Dipper anticipated never appeared.

When nothing happened, Dipper let go and sighed in relief. The cheerful smile was back on his face. "We haven't hung out in a while, have we? Maybe we should go check out that bunker we all went to before. Remember? We haven't finished exploring it. I can look for nests later." He waved his arm toward the part of the forest that they'd found Ford's secret bunker in last year. He was already mentally dredging up plans he'd formed a year ago in the library but set aside indefinitely.

Mabel, arms hanging empty since Dipper had jumped out of them, looked at him in confusion alongside Soos and Wendy. "What… What are you talking about, bro-bro?"

"I don't know," Dipper said, reaching out to Mabel and pulling her to him. He was pretending to be calm. That didn't mean he couldn't reach out for his sister. That was normal when someone hasn't seen their twin in months. _Normal, normal_. _Look normal._ "I just figured that it's been a while since we four have been able to talk somewhere _alone_."

Wendy's eyebrows knit together in concern while Soos opened his mouth, but Wendy elbowed him. "Just go along with it for now," she muttered. Dipper had a plan. Of course he did. Dipper always had a plan, whether the problem was saving the world or picking out the proper brand of cereal at the supermarket.

Dipper led the other three to the bunker, taking shortcuts and shoving branches aside when necessary.

"So you ditched the hat, huh?" Wendy asked as they walked.

"Well, I don't really need it." Dipper ducked his head bashfully, absently reaching up to comb down his bangs. "No one here really cares about the you-know-what." His birthmark, he meant. Mabel and Wendy knew but he'd never told Soos.

"There aren't any signs for the Mystery Shack around here," Soos pointed out as they walked, but Dipper waved him off.

"I know where I'm going."

"You really know the area then, huh?" Wendy commented to prevent another tense silence.

"Ye-ep. Know these woods like the back of my hand," Dipper said as he pointed to himself with a thumb. "I ought to after this long."

"What're you talking about?" Mabel asked. Her voice was high with a faint tremble, totally unlike the confident laughter that Dipper remembered. She knew something was up. Mabel always saw through him.

"We're here!" he said instead of answering, sweeping a final branch aside to reveal the fake tree hiding the secret bunker they'd once explored together.

Wendy laughed. "'You know, for a while there l thought you got lost and wouldn't admit it. l'll-" she started to say, ready to climb up and pull the secret lever on the tree, but Dipper brushed her off as he scrambled up the tree on his own.

"No need! I can do the honors," he said proudly. Even though the tree used to be slippery and hard to climb, Dipper took to it like a monkey, pulling the secret lever and dropping down like he did it daily. The others looked at him slack-jawed as a row of stairs appeared at ground level.

"Hold on, hold on. Since when can you do-" Mabel waved her arm at the tree, surprise seeming to have thrown off her somber mood. " _That_ kind of thing without falling on your face?"

"I've grown up a lot, Mabel," Dipper said with a sniff. "Let's go in." He started walking down. "I've worked a lot on securing this place just in case. Added some more to the stockpile, surrounded the perimeter with unicorn hair, all the _normal_ precautions," he explained as they stepped down.

Mabel's eyes lit up in understanding. "So now that we're down here, no one can hear us. _Even Bill_?"

"That's what I want. I hope so," Dipper said, turning back to her as he dismounted the stairs and led them further inside. They were all the way inside the bunker now. It should be safe.

"So why'd you-" Soos wondered out loud, but he was cut off by Dipper's sobs.

Again, the haunted look had appeared on his face. His features were drawn sharp with exhaustion. More than that, he was clinging to Mabel as hard as she had been holding him earlier. Dipper buried his face in her sweater as his confused sister patted his back.

"Broseph?" Her brother's body shook a little in her arms. "Maybe you should explain what's going on here," she said gently.

"I just, I missed you," Dipper said, his voice muffled by the knit fabric. "I missed you so much. She's like you, she's really close, Bill did a good job, but she's not really you and that's _worse_!"

"...Yeah, that doesn't explain anything," Soos said, sitting down cross-legged beside the twins.

After he gathered himself together, Dipper pulled away from Mabel. He'd started to hiccup and had to take deep breaths while his sister and friends exchanged glances. The high-pitched hiccups were at odds with the brash Dipper they'd seen in the forest, though they were much more in line for the Dipper they knew and loved.

Dipper wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Okay. Okay. So. This world is a dream world, right? Something Bill made, probably?"

"It's a prison," Wendy confirmed with a nod. "We had to bust in here on our own."

"Yeah." Dipper let out a slow breath. "Yeah, I thought so."

"How'd you know?" Mabel asked, rubbing her brother's back. If they were alone, she'd even lend him her sweater for Sweatertown. That's how bad this was.

"It was all too perfect," Dipper said. His voice cracked. The two girls frowned.

"That's it?" said Wendy.

"Yeah. Like… it was all like reality, but just a little bit off. Like you, Mabel-" he squeezed his arms around her a little tighter. "You seemed real, but you were into nerd stuff. And you cancelled plans with guys for me. Stuff like that."

"You figured out this was all fake… because we were acting like nice people?" Wendy tried to clarify, baffled.

Dipper laughed, though it wasn't a happy sound. "Not just that. A thousand little things. You'll probably make fun of me, Mabel, but you wanna know how I knew for sure it was a dream? When I won the free pancakes at Greasy's Diner." It was funny, but no one else seemed to think so. "Nothing was real. None of it was real. And I couldn't tell anyone!" His throat was tight.

"You lived here for a year," Wendy said in disbelief, "Knowing it was a dream? You didn't try to run it by _anyone_?"

Dipper bit his lip so hard that he tasted iron. "Right. I managed to sneak some books in the library about dreams and supernatural sleep. I guess because I wanted them, there they were!" He swallowed. "I figured out that in a situation like mine, there isn't really a way to get out. I mean, I looked. I spent almost every day checking out the woods while I pretended to work with Gr... Ford. Nothing. It's like there were just enough creatures to keep me entertained but nothing dangerous, nothing that would even give me a _chance_ at finding a way out. But yeah, I figured I'd have to wait for one of you guys to find me. It's just lucky that you guys showed up in the woods. I don't know what would have happened if you'd run into someone else first, but… it wouldn't have been good. Bill's always watching."

"I don't get it," Soos said. "You've only been gone a couple days, dude. That sucks, but it's not _that_ long."

"Time works different in dreams," Mabel guessed aloud.

Dipper nodded. "Right. I didn't know if you were coming but from my perspective, it could have taken seconds or years. I don't think I can die of old age here, though. So while it might have only been a few days for you, I've spent over a year here. I stopped expecting you to show up, to be honest," he admitted.

"Well, the good news is that we've got a way out for you all lined up. We'll smuggle you out before Bill even knows you're gone," Wendy said with a warm smile. "Back to reality. Sucky, awful, apocalyptic reality."

Dipper stood up, reassured. The exhaustion behind his eyes seemed to clear up in seconds. "You have _no idea_ how good that sounds."

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Mabel jumped to her feet, boundless energy rolling off her in waves.

" _ **Let's burst your bubble!"**_


End file.
